Just a neat image of the microtubules (green) and DNA (red) in a cancer cell. This image was the winning image in the 2011 IN Cell Analyzer Image Competition. The other entires can be viewed here.Image: Geoffrey Grandjean, MD Anderson Cancer Center/GE Healthcare

Just a neat image of the microtubules (green) and DNA (red) in a cancer cell. This image was the winning image in the 2011 IN Cell Analyzer Image Competition. The other entires can be viewed here.

Image: Geoffrey Grandjean, MD Anderson Cancer Center/GE Healthcare

cwnl: The Northern Stargazer Scientifically known as Astroscopus guttatus. This frightening fish is charmingly named stargazer, because its eyes are situated on top of its head. The fish burrows its flat body underneath the sand, hiding itself so that it is still able to peek out. It then hunkers down waiting to strike if prey swims by. Although many stargazers dwell in shallow water, Northern stargazers live in the deep waters off the Atlantic Coast. Credit: Levent Konuk

cwnl:

The Northern Stargazer

Scientifically known as Astroscopus guttatus. This frightening fish is charmingly named stargazer, because its eyes are situated on top of its head. The fish burrows its flat body underneath the sand, hiding itself so that it is still able to peek out. It then hunkers down waiting to strike if prey swims by. Although many stargazers dwell in shallow water, Northern stargazers live in the deep waters off the Atlantic Coast.

Credit: Levent Konuk

(Source: ikenbot)

cwnl: Nightlight Mushrooms Mycena lucentipes, which literally means “glowing stem,” are bioluminescent fungi whose stems glow so brightly that they illuminate the caps as well, creating the illusion that the entire mushroom is glowing in the dark. There are more than 60 species of bioluminescent fungi species, and the M. lucentipes is one of the brightest-glowing species. Discovered in 2006 in São Paulo, Brazil, by researchers from Brazil’s Institute of Botany, the mushrooms are believed to glow to attract nocturnal insects and animals that can aid in spore dispersal. In the daylight, the mushrooms are a bland brown and tan color, but when night falls, their continuous bioluminescent glow shines through. Credit: Cassius V. Stevani |Chemistry Institute, University of Sao Paulo

cwnl:

Nightlight Mushrooms

Mycena lucentipes, which literally means “glowing stem,” are bioluminescent fungi whose stems glow so brightly that they illuminate the caps as well, creating the illusion that the entire mushroom is glowing in the dark. There are more than 60 species of bioluminescent fungi species, and the M. lucentipes is one of the brightest-glowing species.

Discovered in 2006 in São Paulo, Brazil, by researchers from Brazil’s Institute of Botany, the mushrooms are believed to glow to attract nocturnal insects and animals that can aid in spore dispersal. In the daylight, the mushrooms are a bland brown and tan color, but when night falls, their continuous bioluminescent glow shines through.

Credit: Cassius V. Stevani |Chemistry Institute, University of Sao Paulo

(Source: ikenbot)

Gigantic Roll Cloud Over Wisconsin A type of arcus cloud called a roll cloud. These rare long clouds may form near advancing cold fronts. In particular, a downdraft from an advancing storm front can cause moist warm air to rise, cool below its dew point, and so form a cloud. When this happens uniformly along an extended front, a roll cloud may form. Image Credit: Pierre cb  My blog is very weather orientated today.

Gigantic Roll Cloud Over Wisconsin

A type of arcus cloud called a roll cloud. These rare long clouds may form near advancing cold fronts. In particular, a downdraft from an advancing storm front can cause moist warm air to rise, cool below its dew point, and so form a cloud. When this happens uniformly along an extended front, a roll cloud may form.

Image Credit: Pierre cb

 My blog is very weather orientated today.

(Source: ikenbot, via scinerds)

The Logarithmic Spiral

Now all you guys who are like “Yeah man the Fibonacci spiral is awesome” can just take a back seat here, because here we have the coolest of all spirals: the logarithmic spiral. Truth be told just about every time you’ve heard someone talk about the Fibonacci (or more accurately known Golden Spiral) they’ve been talking about this guy and just not realized it. The logarithmic spiral is given by the equation r=ae^(bθ) where r is the radius, a & b are positive constants and θ is the angle around the origin.

The logarithmic spiral also pops up quite often in nature, being the mathematical pattern behind such things as nautilus shells, Romanesco broccoli, spiral galaxies, the Mandelbrot set, storms, ferns and even sea horses.

The water boatman is a surprisingly interesting creature. Many of you may be familiar with it as those little things that breast stroke their way through, or across the surface, of water. The really cool thing about these fellas is that at 2.3 millimeters they have the loudest song to body size of any creature. So how do they do this? With their genitals. To produce this sound they use whatever appendage of procreation they have  and rub it against ridges on their body. This sound is about 99.2 decibels, about the level you’d expect from the front row of an orchestra. For comparison the sperm whale, considered the loudest animal on the planet, sings at about 236 decibels.

The water boatman is a surprisingly interesting creature. Many of you may be familiar with it as those little things that breast stroke their way through, or across the surface, of water. The really cool thing about these fellas is that at 2.3 millimeters they have the loudest song to body size of any creature. So how do they do this? With their genitals. To produce this sound they use whatever appendage of procreation they have  and rub it against ridges on their body. This sound is about 99.2 decibels, about the level you’d expect from the front row of an orchestra. For comparison the sperm whale, considered the loudest animal on the planet, sings at about 236 decibels.

All is not lost. This cute, fuzzy thing is the red-crested tree rat. This critter has reappeared from hiding and is the first time it’s been seen in 113 years despite formal searches being launched for it. In fact this is one of the first ever photographs of it.

All is not lost. This cute, fuzzy thing is the red-crested tree rat. This critter has reappeared from hiding and is the first time it’s been seen in 113 years despite formal searches being launched for it. In fact this is one of the first ever photographs of it.

These three illustrations were made by an artist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1975 and reflect then-current ideas about our neighboring planet. Mars orbits the sun at a greater distance than Earth and is much colder. It has a thin atmosphere with a lot of carbon dioxide and is very dry. Not a good place for Earthly life.These images may have been influenced by scientists who thought Martian life might have been silicon-based, rather than carbon-based as on Earth. The stumpy life-forms are all fairly simple, and look a bit like 1970s-era home furnishings.

These three illustrations were made by an artist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1975 and reflect then-current ideas about our neighboring planet. Mars orbits the sun at a greater distance than Earth and is much colder. It has a thin atmosphere with a lot of carbon dioxide and is very dry. Not a good place for Earthly life.

These images may have been influenced by scientists who thought Martian life might have been silicon-based, rather than carbon-based as on Earth. The stumpy life-forms are all fairly simple, and look a bit like 1970s-era home furnishings.

(Source: )

Structures thought of as the oldest known fossils of microbes might actually be microscopic mineral formations not associated with life, suggesting that astrobiologists must be careful calling alien objects “life” when scientists have trouble telling what is or was alive on Earth. More than 20 years ago, microscopic structures uncovered in the roughly 3.5-billion-year-old Apex Chert formation in western Australia were described as the oldest microbial fossils. These structures were interpreted as cyanobacteria, once known as blue-green algae, embedded in a silica-loaded rock formed in a shallow marine setting. These structures were all detected in slices of rock just 300 microns thick, or roughly three times the diameter of a human hair. Click here for full article.

Structures thought of as the oldest known fossils of microbes might actually be microscopic mineral formations not associated with life, suggesting that astrobiologists must be careful calling alien objects “life” when scientists have trouble telling what is or was alive on Earth.

More than 20 years ago, microscopic structures uncovered in the roughly 3.5-billion-year-old Apex Chert formation in western Australia were described as the oldest microbial fossils. These structures were interpreted as cyanobacteria, once known as blue-green algae, embedded in a silica-loaded rock formed in a shallow marine setting. These structures were all detected in slices of rock just 300 microns thick, or roughly three times the diameter of a human hair.

Click here for full article.

For some reason as part of tertiary education I am told random facts about frogs. This wastes about 5 minutes of my lecture, however I love all random information, so I thought I’d relay some of it to you. What we have here class is Pseudis paradoxa or the paradoxical frog. What makes P. paradoxa so paradoxical is that the tadpole can grow to be about 25 cm (10 inches) long. So that must make a giant frog right? No, in fact it shrinks down to make a frog only about 7.5 (about 3 inches) long. Hence the paradox.

For some reason as part of tertiary education I am told random facts about frogs. This wastes about 5 minutes of my lecture, however I love all random information, so I thought I’d relay some of it to you. What we have here class is Pseudis paradoxa or the paradoxical frog. What makes P. paradoxa so paradoxical is that the tadpole can grow to be about 25 cm (10 inches) long. So that must make a giant frog right? No, in fact it shrinks down to make a frog only about 7.5 (about 3 inches) long. Hence the paradox.

Bioluminescent dinoflagellates

biobiobio:


What you see here is the defensive reaction of bioluminescent dinoflagellates. Er, the slow-mo voices really enhance your viewing experience.

The beautiful light is produced from luciferins and luciferases.

This diagram illustrates how luciferins and luciferases produce light:

Bioluminescence in dinoflagellates is triggered by some stress - potentially from a predator. The function of the bright blue light, which is usually flashed more than once, is to draw a predator to the location of the dinoflagellates which may have the ability to eat the first predator that began the bioluminescent response (see details on the flashing in this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC426536/).

I’ve seen some of these little creatures of my own. They were living on the lip of a scallop. When you struck the scallop off of a hard surface, the little organisms were agitated, and would flash on and off more than twice. They either got used to the stimulus I gave them, or died, because after the first response they did not respond again. The scallop was out of the water, so maybe the dinoflagellates would not be able to tolerate the harsh conditions of the air…

(Here’s just some speculation… Maybe an advantage to living intimately with a scallop would be to have the scallop consume any predators that would primarily eat dinoflagellates, as long as the scallop was higher on the food chain than that predator. The dinoflagellates get a free ride around with the scallop, which can swim through the water quite effectively for a mollusk, and they get protection along with it. The scallop gets a bit more food, and beautiful, glittery lipstick for its next venture on the runway. Sashay! Shante!)